The secure bunker under the White House was one of the most heavily defended places on the planet. Just getting to the scanners that were the first line of defense required an invite. Without the invite, you risked getting dead just thinking in that direction.

For obvious reasons the Block ambassador had never gotten an invite and, honestly, never expected one. The few times he’d seen the scanners he had made certain to carefully think in another direction entirely. Block intel didn’t know what was past those scanners, at least not that he could access at his level, but they did know what the United States Secret Service procedures were for anyone attempting to violate the area.

So now Shi Wan Jung found himself not only being escorted up to the scanners, but actually bypassing them through an express system that he didn’t know about. He was in the elevator and on his way down almost before he realized that he hadn’t even been scanned.

Not that he was hiding anything, mind you, but it still seemed just a little off.

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“Pardon me?” he asked the man in black beside him, genuinely confused.

“I said, don’t get any ideas,” the man said again. “You’re carrying a wallet, three credit cards, four hundred eighty dollars in cash, and your business cards. You have a GPS transponder in your belt, and another implanted in your lower intestine. The one in your belt has recording capability. That won’t work down here. Neither of them will, actually.”

Shi blinked, eyeing the man carefully before he spoke. “You missed my pen.”

“This pen?” the man asked, holding up the object in question.

Shi’s hand went to his jacket pocket, but it was only instinctive. He knew his own pen well enough to recognize that it wasn’t a fake he was looking at.

The Secret Service man squeezed it lightly and a four-inch blade popped out the top. He turned it over, nodding appreciatively. “Cute neurotoxin. Lethal?”

“Paralysis,” Shi corrected, somewhat annoyed.

It wasn’t that they’d taken the pen. Mind you, he’d expected that. He just didn’t like the fact that they’d lifted it without his knowing. That hurt his sense of professionalism.

“Nice. I’ll return it when you leave.”

“Keep it,” Shi snorted. “I’ll draw another from the armory.”

“Thanks, but the GPS and microbug make it a security issue.” The agent smirked.

Shi sighed. “Then destroy it. I will not take it back to my embassy after you’ve tampered with it.”

“As you like. We’re here,” the agent said, nodding as the doors slid open.

Shi stepped out of the elevator and into the holy grail of Block intelligence, eyes flitting around as he tried to remember everything he was seeing. Opportunities like this just did not come along every day.

This one had taken the beginning of the end of the world, after all.